Sunday, 16 December 2012

Operation Christmas Child Exposed

Me with our translator, Nastia

I’ve been back from Belarus for almost a week now and I have
been enjoying the down time, it is as if I do not have enough brain capacity to
blog right now, I am well and truly spent. I did wake up this morning though
and have a silent longing for it to be last Sunday again; we met so many
fabulous kids in Belarus and we were riding the high of our successful webcast.
Last Sunday was for sure my best day there and the people I spent the week with
were such fun and kept me grounded during a week which could have been very
emotional.

I feel as if I have been propelled on a journey that started
in November 2011 when I was first asked to travel with Operation Christmas Child to be part of and blog about a shoe box distribution abroad. Once the
initial panic of just three weeks’ notice had dissipated I was so excited to
take this journey, OCC is a charity I have supported for years and love the
idea of, so why wouldn’t I do this? I soon realised the answer to this – there
are so many people who are anti-OCC and they were not going to make my journey
easy. The amount of negative comments I have received in the last year could
have been seriously demotivating if I had allowed them to be.

For one reason and another I did not take the journey last
year but it was agreed I would join the OCC team this year, so I had lots of
time to prepare and that was much better for me. If I’m honest I spent much of
this year in a bit of a panic that I might not be able to offer OCC what they
wanted from me. I was really conscious that as a charity they do not have money
to waste and were putting a lot of faith in me to write their stories for the
web and their publications. My trip to Ethiopia with the ONE Campaign helped to
boast my confidence I could do this, but still the niggling doubt remained. Oh
Michelle, ye of little faith!

Controversy

As well as my own performance nerves there was of course the
issue of controversy surrounding the fact that Samaritans Purse (the charity
behind Operation Christmas Child) is an evangelical Christian charity. For me
personally this does not present an issue, I’m a Christian and whilst I do not
tend to label myself, by my very nature of being Christian I am called to
Evangelise, all Christians are. However I know this is a massive issue for many
people, in their words not mine – ‘shoebox gifts should be given without any
strings attached’, ‘forced conversion to Christianity is wrong’ and ‘religion
and charity should be kept separately’.

I have to say that even as a Christian I agree with the
first two statements, the gift should certainly be without strings and
Christianity is all about free-will, so anything that goes against that is not
right in my eyes. As for religion and charity being kept separate that one just
makes me chuckle as charity is ingrained in the Christian faith, God calls us
to love our neighbours as ourselves, which translates into what we nowadays
call charity. If you check back so many of our well known charities today came
about because of Christians.

What I saw and heard...It was because I held these same views as the sceptics that
I felt able to take this journey with OCC, and to blog honestly what about I
saw and found out whilst I was in Belarus. I made a commitment that if I saw
practises happening that made me uncomfortable I would pull away from OCC and
not support them anymore. I’m pleased to say that is not at all necessary, I
did not observe anything in Belarus that made me uncomfortable in the slightest
and I do not think that is because it was set up to be that way, as I was able
to talk to a British photographer who has taken trips with Samaritans Purse
(both UK and USA) to 57 countries, many on more than one occasion.

What made it really interesting for me is that this
photographer is a ‘life-long atheist’. He works with Samaritans Purse and OCC
as he believes in the work they do but that does not mean he holds the same
beliefs. I held my breath slightly as I asked him ‘had he ever witnessed
anything that made him, as an atheist uncomfortable’ and he practically laughed
at me, as if I was asking the strangest question.I explained that in the UK there are some
people who do not believe in the good work that OCC does, that they feel it is
misguided in its efforts and they believe OCC are travelling the world and
forcing poor helpless children to become Christians. I told him some of the
second-hand tales I have heard - of Muslim children being refused boxes, of
children being frog-marched to bible classes and of children being made to pray
a prayer of commitment before they are handed a shoebox gift.

He told me he had frequently seen the ‘Greatest Gift’
leaflet given out alongside the boxes but that the children were free to bin
them if they wanted, that he had seen children of all faiths and none being
given boxes and that he had never witnessed anything that made him
uncomfortable with the work that Samaritans Purse and OCC do. He talked about accompanying
Samaritans Purse staff and volunteers to countries torn apart by war as part of
their World Medical Mission, he witnessed esteemed surgeons pray over
theirpatients and then perform specialist
surgery to save their life (after being hacked apart by a machete) and they
would then again pray with the patient afterwards.I specifically asked if they were making the
patient pray as well and again I got the quizzical look that said ‘are you
crazy?’, ‘no’ he said, ‘they just prayed for them’. He then explained that he
had seen this open up a conversation as the patient would ask why they had done
this for them and then yes they would tell them they felt compelled to do this
work as it is what Christ requires.

Every shoe box is a gospel opportunity

For me this is where the biggest misunderstanding comes
from, Christians understand that we do things as God requires us to, we are
prepared to step outside our comfort zone in the name of our faith but people
without that kind of faith do not understand that and are suspicious of
it.The American website of OCC states
that they see ‘every shoebox as a gospel opportunity’ and so do I.This does not mean I stood and preached to a
child as I handed them their box but it means we showed them love in action as
we handed over something that meant a lot to them and told them we feel
compelled to show love in this way as Jesus loves us. If this initiates a
natural sense of curiosity and they wish to find out more then so be it.

I can sincerely tell you, hand on heart that I did not
observe, nor hear anything that would make me cautious about working with OCC
and I believe I say that as the Christian I now am and I could also happily say
it as the non-believer I was ten years ago. What I learnt is that the shoebox
makes the children smile at Christmastime and also opens a door for the local
church to be able to work with the whole family all year round, not to convert
them but to offer them a bathroom to use, a lift to a hospital, a hand with parenting,
food to eat, friendship and to support them as they seek to give up an
addition.

These are all things I heard whilst I was in Belarus. I ask
you, honestly – would you say the local churches should stop providing those
things? And no it is not with the condition that the children attend bible
classes, this year for the very first time in Belarus they will trial out the
‘Greatest Journey’, a 12 part bible study for children and any child will be
free to attend this. There is no requirement and in all the years that the
boxes have been distributed in Belarus (well over 15) this has never been
available before.

So now you have read my expose what do you think?Do you still have questions you want answered,
leave them in the comments and I endeavour to help.

Thanks for reading, Mich xDisclosure: I travelled to Belarus as an expense paid guest of Samaritans Purse with the intention to collect stories from the children who receive shoeboxes and to help with the live web casts. Never did they place any conditions on what I might blog about whilst I travelled with them. The opinions expressed here are honest and my own.

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